Good Morning and Happy Friday to everyone. It is overcast and we have been told to expect sporadic thundershowers today and tonight. The temps may get up to 80 which will be fine with us--we can shut off the air and open the doors (until it rains). I have been very busy this morning. Yesterday found signs that tomato hornworms have found my tomatoes but I simply couldn't find the #@%# things because of how I had the tomatoes arranged. So I spend a lot of time untangling the various tomato, bean, and pepper plants so I could take the front two tomatoes to a new spot. That allows me to look over all of the plants thoroughly. I did find one of the worms which is now drowning in a container of water. I am surprised though that it took them so long to find my plants. This is the fourth year I have had tomatoes out here. In the process I moved everything around and found space for some of my plans for next year. That is the way it is in very small spaces. If you move one thing a lot of other things have to be moved also.

MSNBC had this report on GDP growth for the second quarter. Sluggish. Only 2.4%. For now. You know how these numbers always change after a month or two. It seems that the missing element in all of this is the consumers who simply aren't buying. Could it possibly be that they have lost their jobs, had their hours cut, or their credit lines dry up? Duh!!! I noticed yesterday some talk on MSNBC on the topic of possible deflation. That has been mentioned sporadically over the last few months--mostly to provide some expert a platform for dissing the whole notion. They aren't really dissing it now. One of the comments cited spokesmen for two companies who claim that they can't raise prices in the U.S. without their sales falling. People simply don't have the money to spend. I think declining wages has been the first sign of deflation but none of the so-called experts cared to make that connection.

I found this item as I checked my Google alerts. The author quotes extensively from a Pew study of the economic health of the various states. Using California as the bench mark (the poster child of fiscal dysfunctionality), the authors of the study rank all of the states on the factors they think most contributed to the economic health or lack thereof of each state. Frankly, it presents a nasty picture and a foreboding one for ending this recession any time soon. The article asks what will happen when the worst off states 'start' lining up to ask for Federal bailouts. I have news for you--California tried that last year and was refused. Maybe the Feds should have bailed out the states and left the banks twisting in the wind!!